Stationary gas turbines are known in prior art. They normally comprise a plurality of burners, which are inserted in burner receiving openings of the turbine housing. The receiving openings are arranged at equal intervals along the perimeter of a ring surface, which is inclined with respect to the longitudinal axis of the turbine housing. Accordingly, the burner receiving openings have a plurality of different orientations demanding a high positioning flexibility of a handling device, which is used for handling the heavy burners during their assembly and disassembly.
A burner handling and lifting device realizing such a positioning is described e.g. in EP-A-2 070 663. This device comprises a supporting structure, a movable grappler fixed to the supporting structure and a burner fixture, which is arranged at the free end of the grappler and configured to receive a burner to be handled. The supporting structure, the grappler and the burner fixture provide three translational degrees of freedom and at least two degrees of freedom of the orientation of a burner fixed to the burner fixture. Accordingly, EP-A-2 070 663 proposes a robotic device for handling a burner during its assembly or disassembly. However, the installation of such a robotic device prior to the assembly or disassembly of a burner is very time-consuming and cumbersome. Moreover, robotic devices of the mentioned type are very expensive.